The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials — 16 CFR Part 465, source 89 FR 68077, August 22 2024 — is short, and it is aimed squarely at things ordinary businesses do without thinking about them. Worth twenty minutes.
A note on scope first: the rule defines a consumer review to include "consumer ratings regardless of whether they include any text or narrative". A bare star with no words is a review.
1. Writing or buying a review that misrepresents the reviewer
§ 465.2: it is an unfair or deceptive act "for a business to write, create, or sell a consumer review, consumer testimonial, or celebrity testimonial that materially misrepresents, expressly or by implication: (1) That the reviewer or testimonialist exists; (2) That the reviewer or testimonialist used or otherwise had experience with the product, service, or business..."
The second clause is the one that catches people. A real person who never used the service is still a misrepresentation.
2. Paying for a particular sentiment
§ 465.4 bans providing "compensation or other incentives in exchange for, or conditioned expressly or by implication on, the writing or creation of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative".
Note what it does not ban: asking for a review. What it bans is conditioning anything on the review being good.
3. Staff reviewing their own employer without disclosing it
§ 465.5 makes it a violation for "an officer or manager of a business to write or create a consumer review or consumer testimonial about the business ... that fails to have a clear and conspicuous disclosure of the officer's or manager's material relationship to the business".
"Clear and conspicuous" is defined in § 465.1 and it is strict — in an interactive medium, "the disclosure must be unavoidable. A disclosure is not clear and conspicuous if a consumer must take any action, such as clicking on a hyperlink or hovering over an icon, to see it."
4. Answering a bad review with a threat
§ 465.7 — review suppression — makes it a violation "for anyone to use an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation in response to a consumer review" in an attempt to stop it being written or to get it removed.
This one is about the reply. A reply that implies legal consequences is regulated conduct.
5. And separately: the contract clause
The Consumer Review Fairness Act (15 U.S.C. § 45b) already makes "a provision of a form contract ... void from the inception of such contract" if it prohibits or restricts a customer's review, or "imposes a penalty or fee against an individual who is a party to the form contract for engaging in a covered communication".
What still stands: the Act does not affect "any civil cause of action for defamation, libel, or slander", nor the right to refuse to display content that "contains the personal information or likeness of another person, or is libelous, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit", is unrelated to what you sell, or is "clearly false or misleading".
Every quotation above is from the provision it names, read from the eCFR and the U.S. Code rather than from a summary. This is the rule, not legal advice.